


within the hollow crown

by NateFraust



Series: In the Embers [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019), A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, F/M, Gen, Hospitalization, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Reincarnation, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24175711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NateFraust/pseuds/NateFraust
Summary: "I live with bread like you, feel want,Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,How can you say to me I am a king?”― William Shakespeare, Richard II---The Young Wolf finds himself in a strange land; with none by his side, how shall he find his way, and why he was brought here?
Relationships: Robb Stark & Margaery Tyrell, Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling (past), Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Series: In the Embers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744894
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. a memory of May cher(r)ies

Everything was afire: his side, his leg, his chest, his head. He tried to move, tried to rub away the pain, but then-

“Ah, ah. None of that, Lieutenant. Lord knows we’ve lost enough of us Tommies to the Huns. Won’t have ya goin’ back out in that storm o’ lead, not with yer injuries.”

“Wha-” His mouth felt - strange, numb, like someone had fed him milk of the poppy while he was out, and he could seem to open his eyes. He tried to sit up, mumbling,“Wheyr- I can-”

“Ah, fer Peety’s sake.” A hand, rough and warm, pushed him back down. “Somebody get me anaesthesia. And where’s Nurse Vincent, Goddamnit?”

He strained against something heavy, some sort of restraint that coldly bit into him when he tried to move. “Let me go. Let me go, gods damn you!”

“Calm  _ down _ , Lieutenant; do you  _ want _ to nick something?”

“No!  _ No! Let me go! _ ”

Someone shuffled past him, then-

* * *

_ “Careful, Joe, careful! Don’t drop them!” _

_ He felt himself huff out a breath. “Bit busy with this bloody branch, Mum.” _

_ “ _ Joseph David Blake. _ ” _

_ “What?” When his head turned, he could only see a sheen of black hair, and disapproving eyes the color of ice. “That’s not a ‘bad word’. You say it all the time.” _

_ The eyes squinted, then he heard a sigh. “Just- not around your brother, alright? I can only imagine how Mel and Janey would react if that was his first word.” _

_ He felt himself scoff as he turned back to his task, fingering the dark red skin for firmness. “Best not say it anymore, then.” _

_ He heard a huff. “If little Tommy’s going to learn-  _ that _ word from anyone, it certainly won’t be me.” _

_ He only gave a non-commital grunt of affirmation. _

* * *

The sky was white above him - or was that cloth?

He tried to speak, but his mouth was a desert. Lifting his arm, he flailed around for a moment.

“Oi, boss-man. The loo wants you.”

“Piss off, Euan.”

“I’m bein’ serious, you gormless twit! The loo wants you! Look!”

“Too fagged for this - ah.”

An unfamiliar face appeared above him. “Youse be wanting some water, I’m guessin’?”

He could only move his head a fraction up and down.

“Here.” The face disappeared, and a moment later, he could feel someone dragging him up, until his head rested against something that felt like canvas. He watched as the man, dressed in some strange sort of jerkin, grabbed a metal box off of a wooden table and brought it over. “Open your mouth.”

He complied, and nearly sighed in relief as a feeling of coolness washed over his tongue and down his throat. He tried to follow the box of water - at least, he  _ thought _ it was, though how he knew, he didn’t understand - as the man -  _ nurse _ \- pulled it away, but he could only move for a moment before falling back onto the canvas.

“Where-” he winced as pain shot through his chest and head, coughed, then tried again. “Where am I? Where are my men?” The questions fell out of him like blood from his mouth. “Where is Jeyne, where’s my mother,  _ where- _ ”

“Whoa, now, slow down, mate, slow down. I dunno no Jane. You remember who ya are?” The nurse looked him in the eyes, squinting. “Your rank? Your battalion?”

“I-I-”

The words came unbidden and unknown.

“Lieutenant Blake of the First.”

“Aye, that’s right.” The nurse squinted again, then picked up some sort of sheaf of paper, jotted down something with a black-headed stick of wood, and returned to his staring.  
He - _Blake_ , he supposed - shuffled for a moment, then, when the nurse didn’t stop, gave a short cough. The man backed away, scowling.

“Where. Am. I.” His voice, weak at first, grew in strength, though the wintry steel cut through all the same.

The nurse opened his mouth, about to speak, when the voice from before rang out, rising above the stir of slurred curses and groans. “The modern shitehole, mate. Otherwise known as Kings’ Landing.”

A cry of terror, a scream of  _ Oh, gods! _ tore through the rising buzz and into his mind as his vision went black.


	2. Borne into this sorw'ful solitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rose blooms again among the ashes, searching for a trace of light.

Someone was screaming. Her throat felt raw, dry, and her head throbbed fiercely, but it was too dark to see.

“Calm yourself, little miss. Dixon, get the bairn something, will you?”

Her heart pounding, she looked around for a moment, then squinted as her vision flashed a brilliant white. Something boomed near to her head, startling her.

“Where am I?” she asked - or tried, her eyes widening in horror as only a rasping whisper came out.

“You’ve been screaming your bloody head off for hours, lass.” The light swung away to reveal a rather thin ser - a guess she assumed to be correct from his mannerisms, if not his strange style of dress - who gave her a weak smile. “Best to get some rest, yeah?”

Some small part of her wanted to protest; taking hold of that feeling, she threw it back from whence it came, instead giving the man a nod and a smile as another boom rumbled through.

The man straightened and returned the gesture, looking up for a moment, then back down at her, smirking. “Bad luck for the Huns, good for us, eh? ‘Night, miss.”

She watched as he left, the strange, fireless lantern he held silhouetting him against the blistering rain, and the other person -  _ Dixon _ \- entered, carrying another (thankfully flaming) lantern in one hand, and a glinting container in another. “Brought some milk,” he whispered, brandishing the container and adding, “for the baby,” when she looked at him with furrowed brow, jutting his neck towards the corner.

She followed his motion to the corner, where a small hand was waving around outside a clump of blankets on a table.

“I’m just going to feed your little one, then I’ll be gone, alright?” Dixon whispered, looking at her with just a hint of caution.

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded, her eyes following the man as he put the lantern and container down on the ground and scooped up the swaddled baby; rocking it back and forth in the crook of his arm as it began to cry, Dixon crouched and picked up the container of milk. Ever so slowly, he began walking back towards her, murmuring softly - for what good it did. The babe’s wails only increased, and she had to fight the urge to roll her eyes.

Dixon held out the swathed babe to her for a moment, then put it down on top of the thin blanket that covered her legs when she only stared. Slowly, her eyes shifted from his nervous stare to the babe’s wide, curious cornflower gaze.

“Here, let me.”

Her eyes shot to his, squinting and moving to wrap her arms around the babe; he shook the container in response. Relenting, she held the babe still as Dixon pulled the container’s stopper, tilting its’ head back so that he could trickle the milk into its’ open mouth and stroking its’ throat so that it swallowed. After a minute, the trickle slowed to a drip, then stopped entirely as Dixon righted the container and sat down beside her.

“Quiet little nipper, innit. Yours?”

The words came to her as she stared blankly at him. “ _ Non, c'est pas à moi. _ ”

“I-” Dixon faltered. “Erm… how do I say…  _ je ne pawlay _ -”

The door boomed open as lightning split the sky. “Damnit, Dixon, off your arse and get to Second Triage,” the man from before roared. “Blake’s seizing!”

Dixon, muffling a “Fucking shite” in his coat sleeve, restoppered the milk; placing it on the small nightstand beside her, he hustled away, leaving her and the babe in the dim light of the lantern.

Shuffling around to get a more comfortable position, she took another look at the babe, muttering, “What in the Seven  _ Hells _ is going on?”

* * *

The place smelled like shite and blood; the bodies - dead or not - didn’t help any in that regard.

Pursing her lips, she stepped through the flap Keenan was holding open, giving him a short nod as she went, and marched right over to Kranech. “You wanted to see me?” she said, careful to speak in a halting lilt, stuttering every once in a while. She didn’t know what dominion of the Seven Hells this place was, with its’ strange architecture, its’ metal magicks and its’ mismatched stars, but until she did, it would clearly be best to behave as though she belonged.

“Mm?” The man Keenan called a “surgeon-colonel” glanced her way, the smoke trailing from the small pipe and getting in her eyes. “Ah, yes, miss- er-”

“Mar- Murielle.”

“Miss Murielle, yes. Well, miss, Orderly Dixon has been keeping me, how to say,  _ informed _ as to your skills with keeping your daughter calm during this period of turmoil,” - she held her tongue at the…  _ incorrect _ assumption - “and we - that is, my compatriots and I - wished to employ your talents towards a rather…  _ troublesome _ patient we’ve been unsuccessful in pacifying thus far.”

“Liutenant… Blake?”

“How-” Kranech’s eyes shifted from her perfectly innocent expression to glare at Keenan; from the shuffling she heard behind her, the orderly knew exactly what had been unsaid. “Yes. Yes, that’s right. Something’s… not quite right about the man, and his behavior has been erratic and abnormal since the battle; thus, we need someone to keep him…  _ occupied _ while we determine his continued usefulness.”

Her nose twitched at the man’s callous manner of speaking, but she smiled to herself as she said, “What must I do?”

Perhaps, if anything, someone to chat with, even one as mad as Kranech made this man out to be, was something her heart - and even her mind - needed in order to keep from breaking completely in twain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely satisfied with the ending of this chapter, but it'll do. Next - well, it's a bit obvious.
> 
> Probably gonna be a 5-to-7 chapter story, if the events and ending I've got in mind works how I think they do.


End file.
